The Chula Vista mayor and City Council this week voted to give themselves raises.
If we’re nakedly honest with ourselves, we would have done the same. Especially if we had the law on our side.
Fifteen years ago Chula Vista voters decided to link the mayor’s salary to that of superior court judges, and that of a City Council member would be attached to that of the mayor, forming a nice little money train.
By making council salary increases automatic and tied to a percentage of an impartial party, the idea was to keep the council from giving themselves fat increases that they may not have deserved.
Now the system — not the council — gives them raises they may not deserve. Is it problematic? I guess it depends on if you’re writing or cashing the checks.
Call it fortuitous timing on Mayor Mary Casillas Salas’s and the universe’s part. The long time South Bay political figure is in her ninth month as mayor and she gets a healthy raise, one that boosts her annual salary from about $121,000 to approximately $124,000.
Likewise the City Council, which as a whole has been operating as a unit only since November, also sees an increase.
The part-time representatives will see their pay go from $48,737 a year to $49,907. (If I’m appointed Councilman Steve Miesen I’m thanking the Almighty Creator for my good fortune. Not only did I not have to campaign and participate in a regular election like my council colleagues did, I’m getting a raise too? Chula Vista voters are awesome!)
Admittedly, part of me is envious. A law ensuring I get a raise is a sweet deal and it’s a sentiment I’m sure shared by lots of people.
But I’d also guess that lots of people wonder what the mayor and the council have done to earn their raises?
Maybe expecting merit-based salary increases for council members is unreasonable. After all, council members build upon the work performed by councils before them and the staff who who do the actual work and policy implementation. What metrics can be used to demonstrate, for example, how much money Councilman John McCann should earn compared to Councilman Steve Miesen? The number of meetings attended? The votes cast or abstained from? Public meetings initiated, potholes filled and promises kept?
It would have been nice to hear the council and mayor offer even a perfunctory explanation of why they felt they deserved the raise. But instead the only reasoning we got was that the charter requires the council and mayor get a raise when the judges get one. Nice gig if you can get it.
But envy aside I’m still left wondering, how do you know you get what you’re paying for? And what are you paying for?
